Tag Archives: Rick Meldon

Along with figuring Team results, the meet organizer Steve Gardner, also figured individual results from the IAWA World Team Postal Competition. The individual winner of this postal competition was Rick Meldon, England, of the Sunbury Club. Congratulations Rick!!! Rick’s team also won the Team Title – making him a double winner. Rick Meldon has been winning championships in the IAWA since the IAWA origin, starting with his first overall best lifter victory in 1990. He was the Best Master Lifter , Best Open Lifter, and the Overall Best Lifter in the 2008 IAWA World Championships held in Burton, England on October 4th & 5th, 2008. At this meet, he was crowned “Champion of Champions”. The Meet Director, Steve Gardner, had invited all the previous Overall Best Lifters to this meet to compete against each other to decide who was the Champion of Championsl! Rick has won two other Overall Best Lifter titles at the IAWA World Meet, in 1992 and 2004. Rick has more Overall Best Lifter titles at the World Meet than anyone else in the history of the IAWA.

These point totals were calculated using bodyweight adjustments, age adjustments, and applying the Blindt Formula. For those not familiar with the Blindt Formula, it involves multiplying each lift by a factor that is supposed to bring all lifts to the same weighted value. Every lift has a different factor. The intended purpose of using the Blindt Formula is to keep the heavier lifts from being a bigger part of a lifter’s total than the lighter lifts. The Blindt Formula has not been used recently in any USAWA competitions.

FULL MEET RESULTS:

A word from the Organiser:

This postal competition was organised as a ‘Fun’ team event, for teams of three, but also with the flexibility to allow individual lifters to join in to see where they rank amongst the other lifters. We had lifters from England, USA and Australia taking part, and from the ages divisions of Juniors 13 + Under through to the Masters 75+. Well done to all who took part, I will organise another competition for next year with four different lifts. Please see below that the results are figured first as teams and then as individuals. Best Wishes and Happy Lifting – Steve Gardner

(3 Teams comprised of only 2 members, but there were also 3 individual lifters, so the individuals were added to those teams as ‘guests’ to round things up into teams of 3.)

It is a difficult task to try to come up with an All-Time Top Ten list for any lift, and the One Arm Dumbbell Swing is even more difficult than others. I used many resources in formulating this list and want to state that I have tried my best to make this list as accurate as possible but I know that the list is not perfect. Several factors made this research difficult. Were the lifts official or unofficial? Was a dumbbell used or a Kettlebell used? Was the lift actually an One Arm Swing or was it an One Arm Dumbbell Snatch? I want to thank everyone on the Iron History Forum for helping me with this project – their knowledge on lifting history far exceeds mine!!!

TOP TEN PERFORMANCES ALL-TIMETHE ONE ARM DUMBBELL SWING

Rank Pounds Lifter Date

1.

220

Hermann Goerner (Germany)

1920

2.

219

Charles Rigoulot (France)

1932

3.

202

Maurice Deriaz (Switzerland)

1912

4.

199

Jean Francois LeBreton (France)

1907

5.

198

Ernest Cadine (France)

1925

6.

194

Emile Deriaz (Switzerland)

1904

7.

190

Ron Walker (England)

1937

8.

187

Arthur Saxon (Germany)

1905

9.

178

Stan Kratkowski (United States)

1934

10.

176

Gabriel Lassortesse (France)

1907

As you can see from this list – all the top ten lifts of ALL-TIME in the One Arm Dumbbell Swing happened before the year 1937. The swing is definitely a “forgotten lift”. As I said the other day, one arm lifts were often contested in lifting competitions in the early 1900’s. Today, the only opportunity to do an One Arm lift is in an All-Round weightlifting competition. And given the large number of All-Round lifts – the chance to do an One Arm Swing in competition does not come around that often. It takes extra time to load a swing dumbbell during competition which leads Meet Directors in not selecting the One Arm Dumbbell swing for a competition lift.

Steve Angell, in an IAWA competition, did an One Arm Swing with 165 pounds. Rick Meldon, weighing only 160 pounds, did an One Arm Swing with 172 pounds in an IAWA event – the highest over bodyweight One Arm Swing ever in competition!!!